Literati: The Forgotten Moments
by JohnGreenGirl
Summary: I just shamelessly love Literati and don't think there were enough Literati scenes in the show... So I wrote my own! Collection of one-shots featuring Rory and Jess. [COMPLETE]
1. Light Me Up

_Light Me Up_

* * *

"I don't know why you like those things," Rory said, distracting Jess from the stones he was skipping. The pair was sitting on the bridge that ran across the lake, one of the few places in Stars Hollow they had found where they had privacy.

Rory had been telling Jess some ridiculous story about Paris, that he was only half listening to. It wasn't until Rory changed the subject that she had Jess' full attention.

"What, you've never had one?" Jess asked, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. Luke had been trying to get him to quit since he came to live with him, but it hadn't worked. Jess wasn't sure it ever would, considering he had been smoking since he was ten.

He could thank Liz for that. When her man of the month had dared Jess to try one, she had only laughed like it was a cute moment. Ever since that first hit, Jess had smoked regularly.

Rory shook her head. She had curled her hair that day, and the brown curls swirled around her face with the motion.

"The smell has been pretty good at keeping me away," Rory said, her nose crinkled. If she was being honest, she would have told him the smell of cigarettes _alone_ turned her away. But the faint smell of cigarette smoke mixed with the warm, spicy cologne Jess wore was one of Rory's favorite things about him.

"Believe me, it's not the smell or the taste that keeps people coming back." To appease Luke, Jess had given quitting what he considered an honest effort. But two days in, he couldn't take the headaches and his shaking hands anymore.

Jess took another drag off the cigarette before leaning forward and dipping the tip into the lake to extinguish it. Then he took the spent cigarette and put it back in the pack. He had struck a compromise with Luke: Since he obviously wasn't yet cut out to actually quit, at the very least Jess wouldn't litter his cigarettes.

Apparently there was not an abundance of smokers in Stars Hollow, and Jess' name was on Taylor's list. Luke and Jess both knew any cigarette discarded in the gutter would be blamed on Jess.

"Can I try one?" The question surprised Jess. His girlfriend, Rory Gilmore, was the most straight and narrow person he knew.

" _You_ want to try a cigarette?" Jess asked. Rory sat up a little straighter, squaring her shoulders. An adorably stubborn look overtook her features.

"Yes."

Shaking his head and smirking, Jess pulled a new cigarette from the pack and held it out to Rory. Jess watched as Rory lifted it to her lips, trying to get it to fit comfortably in between them.

"Don't bite down on it," he told her, chuckling as he watched. "You ready?"

"Light me up," Rory said, the words coming out muffled because she didn't remove the cigarette as she smoke.

Jess pulled out his lighter, flicking the flame on and bringing it closer to Rory.

"Inhale after I light it, and then take the cigarette out of your mouth and blow it out."

Before it was even lit, Jess knew how the situation would play out. But he also knew how stubborn Rory was, and he didn't feel like fighting her on it.

As Jess expected, Rory inhaled too deeply, dropping the cigarette as her coughing fit began. Luckily, the cigarette fell into the water below them and not onto the wooden bridge.

Jess patted Rory's back, trying not to laugh as he knew it wouldn't be appreciated. Once Rory's coughs finally subsided, there were tears welling in her blue eyes as she sent a glare to Jess.

"You're the one who wanted to try it," Jess reminded her in response to her accusatory glare. "The same thing happened to me the first time I did it, too."

"Those are terrible," Rory forced out. Her voice was a little raspy.

"Yeah, I know," Jess agreed. Once Rory was settled, he leaned out far over the bridge, just barely catching the wasted cigarette before it could float out of his reach. He set it beside him to dry out before he could put it back with the others.

"More terrible is the fact that _you_ almost got me put on a Taylor Doose Most Wanted List."


	2. The Forehead Thing

_The Forehead Thing_

* * *

Rory and Lane were laying on Rory's bed, listening to a new host of CDs Lane had gotten that day. This was not an unusual thing for the friends to do, but what _was_ unusual was when Lane turned her head toward Rory and asked, "What do you like about Jess?"

Nobody in Stars Hollow, save for Luke, seemed to grasp the fact that Rory really was dating Jess. Or that she was happy about it. It was exhausting trying to convince people—especially her mother—that Jess was what she wanted.

No matter how many times she said it, no one ever listened to her when she tried to explain that the Jess she knew was different from the one he showed everybody else.

Rory sighed and stared up at her bedroom ceiling. She knew she had to think of something good to tell Lane, because if it wasn't good enough, Lane would just roll her eyes.

As Rory stared at her ceiling, a memory popped into her head:

 _The night Jess wrecked her car and Rory broke her wrist, she knew. She_ knew _. She still didn't want to admit it then, but she knew._

 _After the car had stopped moving, Jess jerked it into park and turned to her immediately, panic written all over his face. When he saw that she was not seriously hurt, relief had flooded into his brown eyes as he undid his seatbelt and practically hurled himself over the console to hug her._

 _It was the first time he had really touched her, but he pulled her tight against him as he whispered, "Thank you, thank you."_

 _"_ _Are you hurt?" He asked, pulling back from her. His hands were still on her shoulders as he looked into her eyes._

 _"_ _Um," Rory said. She could feel herself shaking just a little, but she honestly could not tell you if it was left over adrenaline from the crash or because Jess had just hugged her. "M-my wrist."_

 _She lifted it to show him. Already it was swollen and bruised._

 _Jess muttered a 'shit' to himself as she instructed him to rummage in her bag and find her cellphone, to call 9-1-1. He would have driven her himself, but when he tried to turn the engine over, all he got was a terrible noise._

 _"_ _Stupid, stupid hand-made car," he mumbled, his hands shaking as he hit the numbers on the keypad. After he spoke to the dispatcher and had confirmation an ambulance was on the way, he pulled Rory into another hug, careful of her wrist._

 _This time when he pulled away from her, he tipped his forehead against hers._

 _"_ _I thought I hurt you. Like really, really hurt you."_

 _"_ _You didn't." Just when she had calmed down a little, now her heart was racing again because of Jess' proximity. His eyes were still closed, but she studied his face, so close to hers._

 _Jess bit his lip and slowly opened his eyes to look into hers. His brown eyes looked darker than usual, and there was something in them Rory couldn't quite read._

Rory turned her head to meet Lane's eye. She knew what she was about to say would speak to Lane's hopeless romanticism.

"He does the forehead thing," Rory told her, tipping her own head forward to demonstrate.

Despite the hard look Lane had been giving her just a few minutes before, Lane's eyes lit up and a smile began to spread across her face.

"Oh. My. _God!_ " Lane enthused, her excitement over that little fact getting the best of her.

"I guess that's a good reason to like him," Lane said dismissively once she'd gotten control of herself.

Rory only rolled her eyes and smiled. It didn't bother her, really, that nobody seemed to get why she and Jess worked. They just did.


	3. A Letter to Jess

A Letter for Jess

 _Jess,_

 _I didn't meant to kiss you._

 _I mean, I did mean to kiss you. But I shouldn't have done it. It was wrong. It wasn't fair, not to you or to Dean._

 _I shouldn't have gone to New York. I missed my mother's graduation because of that stupid idea. Going there and being with you, alone, away from Stars Hollow, made my head fuzzy. I wasn't thinking straight when I kissed you. I don't know why I did it._

 _I like you. A lot. I like everything about you, and it's so frustrating. I like your messy dark hair. And your brown eyes remind me of coffee beans, which you know is a compliment if it's coming from me. I like that you talk out of the side of your mouth. I like that you read and I like what you read and I like that you write and doodle in the margins of books. I like that you're a better person than you want to believe and that you're smarter than you'll ever admit._

 _I love Dean. I mean that. And both of you deserve better. So I'm going to be better for Dean, because that really is what he deserves even though you don't like him. You deserve better, too, Jess. Better than someone who's going to kiss you when she isn't sure why she did it. You should be with someone who really wants to kiss you._

 _I'm an idiot. I'm sorry. I'm a sorry idiot._

 _I think I love you, too, and I shouldn't. No one should love two people at once._

 _Please just forget about it, Jess. Please._

* * *

When Rory got back from Washington, D.C. at the end of that summer when everything changed, Jess accused her of ignoring him after the kiss. That she didn't bother to reach out to him—no phone calls, no letters, no smoke signals—so why should she be mad about Shane?

But that wasn't _entirely_ true. Rory did write him a letter, but…

Well, she couldn't very well send it, because the majority of it was crossed out because she had written things she hadn't wanted to admit.


	4. Sappy Sickening Sweet

_Sappy. Sickening. Sweet._

* * *

In early fall, Rory and Jess spent a lot of time reading outside. The weather had mellowed out from the summer's heat, and the grass was still green, the leaves not yet falling from the trees.

Outside kind of seemed to be their thing. Jess liked to be outside, not unlike his uncle. Only Jess liked to be outside in the context of the town, not in some field camping. Rory liked it too, at least for reading. The outside had always been quieter than in the house with her mother.

"Ready to swap?" One would ask the other occasionally. They liked to play a game where they would read books of short stories, switching books after each story.

Sometimes they read on the bridge, one of their favorite spots. They would lay out side-by-side on old blankets. Sometimes they read the same book at the same time, because their reading speeds matched. Jess usually held the book when they did this, since his arms were longer. Never once did he have to wait for Rory to finish before turning the page.

Park benches were also a favorite spot. Using her backpack or Jess' jacket as a pillow, Rory would sit so that she was stretched out across the park bench, her feet in Jess' lap. Jess, ever the book defacer, would curl himself around her legs, his pen scribbling in the margins of whatever he was reading.

One day, though, they were reading in the square, not far from the gazebo. Jess was laying on his back, his book held above him. Rory was laying down, too, her head resting on Jess' stomach, rising and falling softly with his breaths.

Jess held his book with one hand, the other playing idly in Rory's hair. Both of them were so absorbed in their stories that neither of them noticed Lane stop at Jess' head.

"This is entirely too sappy," Lane lamented, though there was a smile on her face as she looked down at them. At first, neither one heard her.

"It's downright sickening!" That drew Jess' attention, at least, though all he did was furrow his brow and shush Lane.

"Okay, it's kind of sweet. But still sickening."

Jess untangled his hand from Rory's hair long enough to shoo Lane off with it. Lane had smirked as she walked away. But when she was far enough away not to be noticed by them, she pulled her Polaroid camera out of her backpack.

Lane quickly took two pictures, one for Jess and one for Rory. She held them carefully as she finished her walk home, not wanting anything to disturb their development.

It would live on to be a picture that both Rory and Jess kept long after the two embarked on separate paths.


	5. Jess' First Christmas

_Jess' First Christmas_

* * *

Jess was seventeen years old during the time he was dating Rory, but despite his age, it wasn't until Rory handed him a present on December 25th that he had experienced any kind of Christmas.

He could thank Liz for that. Her constant slew of new boyfriends, new jobs, and new apartments didn't leave a lot of time or money for things like holidays. Jess remembered that once, when he had asked, Liz had told him point-blank that Santa didn't exist and that's why he never visited. Jess had only been six years old at the time, and he had learned about Santa in his kindergarten class.

"You got me a present?" He asked, his hands reaching out for it while his mind was still processing the gesture. Rory had wrapped it in red paper, and stuck a green sparkly bow on top.

"Of course I got you a present," Rory told him. "It's Christmas."

Jess had gotten Rory a gift, of course. He had bought it a while ago, when he had gone back to New York. But then the kiss at Sookie's wedding, and Rory's summer in Washington, and Shane had all happened, so he had been hanging onto it for quite a few months by that time.

It was a signed, first-edition copy of _Anna Karenina._ Whoever had owned it before had loved it well; the leather of the front cover was soft and worn. There was still a bookmark tucked towards the back of the book. Inside the front cover, someone had pressed flowers that Jess though had once perhaps been blue, though now they were a grayish-white. He had left them inside for Rory to find.

He had found it at one of New York's many thrift stores. Jess was certain the bored-looking teenage boy working the checkout counter of the shop had no idea how much the book was really worth. It had been sitting on a shelf of two-dollar books.

But his gift for Rory was upstairs, sitting on his bedside table. Rory had come by the diner to give Jess his gift after spending part of Christmas with the Kims and the other part with Sookie and Jackson.

Jess stood behind the counter while Rory sat on a stool in front of him, turning the present around in his hands.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Rory asked, watching Jess curiously. Her brows folded together when Jess shook his head.

"Come with me upstairs, so you can open yours too," Jess explained, reaching over the counter for Rory's hand. She followed him upstairs and took a seat on Luke's couch while Jess received her present.

While Rory pulled tissue paper out of her gift bag, Jess began pulling the wrapping paper away. Underneath he found a box, and when he opened the box he found he was being spoiled. Inside was a wrapped batch of sugar cookies—his favorite, and baked by Sookie, an attached note reassured him—as well as a DVD copy of _Balto_ , which had been his favorite movie as a kid.

Digging deeper, Jess also found a gray beanie. He had lost his own a few weeks back. A new copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_ rounded out the little gift set. Jess' original copy of the book had become a casualty of his moving back and forth between Stars Hollow and New York City over the past few months.

If it wouldn't have mortified him, Jess could have cried he was so touched by the gift. Lucky for him, Rory was so engrossed with her own gift that she didn't notice the fact that Jess' eyes had gone watery.

"Do you like it?" He asked, nodding toward the book in Rory's hand. Jess was trying to distract from his own present.

"Yes!" Rory enthused, a radiant smile on her face as she looked up at him. "It's so cool! I didn't even know there were any signed copies. My grandpa is going to be so jealous."

Jess was grateful when Rory leaned forward and kissed him happily. It meant he didn't have to talk, or even think about, the fact that she had given him a present.

That was the first happy Christmas Jess had ever had, yet at the same time it made him sad that it had taken so long for him to have a chance to enjoy the holiday.


End file.
